Towards the end of the 19^th century ? i.e. when the village lăutari became more numerous and responsibly aware of their role as professional musicians of the village world (9) ? the courtly songs and (eventually) the mahala tunes began to penetrate, rather slowly and probably in forms of a more rural outline, the space of the villages, after having first passed through the marginal mahalale, then the fairs, town markets and inns. I expect this latter statement to sound rather debatable, so I?ll explain: although I am not an enthusiastic adept of the ?decayed goods? theory, now obsolete in many people?s opinion, I confess that the research observations I made both in my library studies and on the field, have confirmed it on a good number of occasions, at least in relation with the particular case of Romanian traditional music. The truth is that the theory would not have been so successful had it not been solidly supported by actual facts. Constantin Lupu?s dance melodies are a very likely instance of these ?decayed cultural goods?.

So, in the late 19^th-century and early 20^th-century Romanian Principalities, the urban and rural fiddlers? music was still bearing ? in some respects and to some degree ? the unquestionable mark of the Phanar. Could this mark have been as intense and colorful along the centuries prior to this time, which is to say during the whole period when the Romanian Principalities? political life had been under the shadow of the Crescent Moon? I cannot venture an answer. All I can firmly say is that all along the 19^th century, the Romanian fiddlers? music grew on the field of an amiable contest between the Southeastern and Western influences, where the latter gradually managed to tone down the former. Therefore the Phanariot mark grew dim, first in the music of the towns and fairs, and later in that of the villages; I can think of no other explanation why it is almost completely absent from the earliest folklore archives. At the beginning of the 20^th century, professional popular music all across Romania was swept into a process of refashioning along Western lines ? one captured in George Enescu?s Rhapsodies op. 11 as well.

            The time of Enescu?s Rhapsodies and the time of Vulpian?s Hore were only separated by several decades. Still, Enescu, an adolescent educated at the European school of music, was first struck by and attracted to the folk stylistic stratum, to which his education introduced him. Vulpian, a mature man from another generation, rather had an ear for the Oriental stratum that had embraced his boyhood. But later, when Enescu grew up, when his tastes became more refined and diversified, he had the revelation of this Phanar-scented music one could still hear in the town pubs. It was this music that murmured at the back of his ear when he composed The Third Sonata for piano and violin, Childhood recollections, Village Suite, the final part of The Sonata for cello op. 26 no. 2 etc., and also, to some extent, his later works (Oedipus, Chamber Symphony, etc.).

The pan-Balkan wave that faded almost entirely from the music of the first three decades of the 20^th century makes us think of the present situation.